Appalachian Adventure Racing Camp
Copyright© 2025 by Canairs90s
Scene 19 — Cal
The foursome who seemed to be becoming fast friends were the first to arrive at the starting point for the afternoon’s first competition - the fourth of the larger contest. Laurie greeted them in a small clearing just before the field and asked what they thought of the camp overall so far.
“It’s easy for me to say this with how we’ve done so far, but I am having an amazing time. It’s everything I hoped for to be honest,” Lindsey answered enthusiastically. “I don’t love the rate at which I’m destroying the clothing I brought, but it is what it is, I won’t lose any sleep over it, especially if we win.”
“Yeah, I agree,” said Bailey, “we haven’t had the success Cal and Lindsey have, but we’re enjoying the intensity and all the ways there are to take on these challenges. We got filthy as hell playing college soccer on less than ideal pitches in the rain, so that aspect doesn’t bother us.”
“Plus, I’ve noticed there are definitely ways to complete every challenge without getting dirty,” Cal noted, “so it’s really just a choice we make to pursue the strategy we think is right.” He fervently hoped they could do well in this challenge without having to get all messy considering how cute Lindsey looked and her lack of clean clothes.
Dillon and Tommy sauntered up to the rest of the group. Now that it was mid-afternoon with the sun out it was getting very hot. The guys both wore gym shorts and shirts with the sleeves cut off and sides hollowed out that had their fraternity’s name on the front. They both stood at the edge of the little clearing, arms crossed, faces unreadable. Cal pondered what their mindset was. Had Dillon convinced Tommy to adjust his thinking? Were they just resigned to losing at this point? It would be interesting to see how they performed in this challenge. Pierre and Laurie had warned them this would be the most physically demanding game yet, perhaps they were relying on that.
Annie and Stefan were close behind Team 1. Stefan was wearing a grey tank top and short white rugby shorts. Annie was in a workout outfit that consisted of grey spandex shorts and a purple top that was somewhere between a sports bra and a tank top. Like the men of Team 1 they didn’t engage with the group beyond polite nods and stood with serious expressions. Cal contemplated the changed demeanors of Teams 1 and 3. He wondered if the ruthless competitors he and Lindsey had shown themselves to be was hardening the competition.
“Good afternoon everyone,” Laurie started the introduction, “to start this afternoon’s festivities let’s review scores so far. As I’m sure you all are aware Team 2 has won all 3 competitions so far and is in first place with 9 points. Tomorrow’s game IS worth double points, but if they have more than a six point lead on the rest of you they will clinch victory today. If that happens we’ll meet as a group to discuss how we want to handle tomorrow. As you all know, there is no second place prize here so we don’t necessarily have to complete the competition as planned, we’ll figure that out together if it comes to pass. HOWEVER, them clinching today would also be an unprecedented first, it’s never happened in the history of this camp. Teams have come close but it has never actually happened. I hope the rest of you are motivated to keep that streak alive.”
Tommy, Dillon, Stefan and Annie looked even more grim and determined after that speech. Bailey and Cara didn’t have quite the same grim expressions but Cal could see in their eyes a focused competitiveness.
“One other team has scored in every contest so far - Team 4 - they’re in second place with 4 points. Team 3 is in third with 3 points and Team 1 has just the two points from their runner up finish in our first challenge this morning. Good luck to everyone this afternoon, let’s proceed to the starting point,” Laurie finished.
The group walked a short distance and emerged from the trees into a large field. The first thing Cal noticed were a pair of small tractors up on cinder blocks facing each other. He was not an expert in farm equipment but these seemed like simple compact utility tractors - no massive cab and no attachments on them right now.
“Here at the camp we need to use tractors from time to time,” Pierre began the explanation of the challenge. “They’re needed to set up some of our challenges and we also maintain a large garden to supply both us and to sell produce in town. Lucky for you all, we decided it’s time for us to swap out the rear wheels on our tractors, so that’s what you will be doing today as your fourth challenge. To complete the challenge you must dismount your assigned rear wheel, take it to the tractor shed at the other end of the field, grab a new wheel from the shed, bring it back here and mount it on the tractor. Just like changing to a spare on your car, just that these are a bit bigger. Simple, right?”
Cal nodded to himself. This seemed doable but he could understand why they had been warned this was a physically intense challenge.
“Come on y’all, you should know ‘simple’ isn’t part of our vocabulary here, of course there’s a wrinkle!” Laurie said with a smile. “Something you may not know about farm equipment is that tractor tires are often filled with liquid to act as ballast. The new tires on the wheels you are going to mount are currently just filled with air, you will need to add 50 pounds of ballast to complete your task. That’s not actually as much as we should ultimately add, but too much more than that and the weight of the wheels would start to get a bit too heavy to be moved safely. You can try to recycle the ballast in the old tires if you wish or you can just use water from the stream down by the tractor shed.” She pointed to the opposite end of the field where the contestants could see a small bridge leading across the stream to a shed.
“We have provided each team with a small hand pump for liquid, one for air, hoses, buckets and all of the wheels have fluid adapters on them so you can pump liquid in or out as needed.”
“The last thing we want to emphasize is safety,” Pierre said. “You are dealing with very heavy objects here - each wheel weighs about 80 pounds on its own before you add the required ballast. The wheels currently on the tractor each have upwards of 100 pounds of ballast in the tires. It’s beet juice by the way, which weighs more than water per gallon but is completely safe and has a lower freezing point. We strongly recommend you drain some before dismounting the wheels.
“If at any point you start to lose control of a wheel DO NOT try to catch it, grab it off balance or anything like that. You could be seriously injured. Do not try to move the wheels at a run. If we observe any unsafe or even moderately risky behaviour that team will be disqualified. Any questions?”
“How quickly do the hand pumps transfer liquid?” asked Dillon.
“Not very, but it depends on how hard you can pump them,” Pierre answered.
How will you know when we’ve gotten to 50 pounds?” inquired Stefan.
“Each tractor is on a scale, we’ll have to keep track of who put their tire on first and who is pumping what in since of course there’s two wheels on each tractor, but we should be able to tell. If there’s any question we can help you dismount a wheel to verify,” explained Laurie.
“How many gallons of water or beet juice do we need to add to get to 50 pounds?” asked Cara.
“Hmmm, good question,” replied Pierre. He briefly conferred with Laurie before continuing. “We’ve decided we aren’t going to give you an exact number, but we can let you know that beet juice weighs approximately 50% more per gallon than water.
Nobody had any further questions and the teams moved into position. Teams 1 and 2 were assigned to one tractor and Teams 3 and 4 to another. For Cal and Lindsey that meant the only team that they could really observe was Annie and Stefan working next to them since the other two teams were on the opposite sides of the tractors. Pierre shouted that they could begin work and everyone got to work.
Cal and Lindsey briefly discussed their plan.
“There’s certainly a number of different ways to approach this one, but I think overall we need to keep in mind we’ve got a big lead. As long as we keep scoring points we will be in a really good position tomorrow. We need singles, not necessarily home runs this afternoon,” Cal said.
Lindsey looked at him with surprise, but then her logical side seemed to kick in and she replied, “I suppose you’re right. It’s a bit against my natural tendencies but we do need to keep the larger picture in mind. Where do you think we should start?”
“Well the fastest way to get the juice out of the tire would be to just get the tire off the hub and dump it out, we’d need something to use as a tire iron to dismount it.”
Cal examined the tools they had been given. The lug wrench might be a possibility ... in typical camp fashion they’d just been given a cheap wrench instead of a proper x-wrench. However that might actually work out here if he could wedge the handle between the wheel and the tire. He picked it up and began to see if this was a possibility. He couldn’t get much purchase, maybe if Lindsey helped they could work together? He dismissed the possibility, if they did succeed, juice was going to go everywhere. He didn’t want that.
“I’m not sure this is going to work, let’s start pumping some juice out into a bucket we can reuse. The one who isn’t pumping can begin taking the lug nuts off,” he said.
“Ok, I’ll start the pump,” Lindsey answered. She attached the hose to the adapter on the wheel, placing the opposite end in the bucket.
Cal rotated the wheel so that the valve stem was pointed downwards.
“This should cause it to flow faster, the gravity will work with us,” he said.
Cal glanced over at Team 3 while he began removing lug nuts. They seemed to be fiddling with the adapter. It took him a moment to realize what they were up to. With the valve stem exposed they could remove the valve core and the juice would flood out of the tire with nothing to hold it in. That would certainly get the juice out faster than their pump but once gravity had done its work it seemed like they would have a hard time getting more than maybe a quarter of the juice out since air would be lighter. It would also be an extremely messy process to try to collect the juice from the valve. He dismissed their approach as inefficient.
Suddenly, there was a loud ‘pop’ from the opposite side of their tractor, followed by a shout of ‘Let’s fucking gooooooo’. There was the loud sound of a large amount of liquid spilling. It took Cal only a moment to surmise that Team 1 had managed to dismount the tire from the rim to quickly drain the majority of the juice from it. A minute later Dillon and Tommy, arms purple with beet juice, came around the tractor pushing the large wheel. The tire had clearly been dismounted but the two big men were having no trouble controlling it.
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